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Review: Death Lives On in "Darksiders 2"

Looter's Paradise

THQ and Vigil promised that Darksiders 2 would be a loot fest, and the game does not disappoint in this regard.

Enemies range in size from large beetles to Shadow of the Colossus-sized behemoths (that one's the best boss battle in the series so far), and anything larger than a dog is practically guaranteed to drop something. Sometimes that's just gold, but armor (head, shoulders, feet, hands, etc.) and weapons both primary (scythes) and secondary (axes, hammers, arm-blades, swords) also appear with frequency.

Particularly fun is the addition of "possessed" weapons that, when fed your unused items and equipment, level up and give you a choice of different stat buffs. You can even rename them; my custom scythes, the "Bum Ticklers" and "Sperm Shovels," served me well for much of the game.

You'll be very familiar with the menus by the time you're done with Darksiders 2, and thankfully they're quite functional. It's easy to see what items are new and compare them to your current gear, change your active quest (there's a great selection of interesting side-quests), and spend skill points in Death's new ability trees.

And death's skills cover everything from summoning fiery, exploding ghouls to warping behind enemies and defensive and offensive buffs. There are numerous ways to augment each ability, and it's dead simple to respec and try out different builds. It's all rounded out by a sort of Super Saiyan mode that lets Death go berserk for a short time.